Questionnaire Format

A questionnaire format pertains to the various formats that the various questionnaires resort to. While collecting certain information through questionnaire, one might set his preferred format that will suit his requirements and means of collecting the information. The various types of questionnaire formats include open question format, closed question format, importance questions, leading questions format, dichotomous, bipolar, rating Scale and buying propensity format of questions.

The good thing about questionnaire formats are that you can always choose the particular format that caters to the information you need. Moreover you can also choose the format by the kind of people you are going to question. Formats give you the scope to get specific information and also simple one word replies as required.

However, some formats might be more tedious to be set on questionnaire and some might take time which might repel respondents from answering in the first place. For example in open format questions the respondent might just prefer to keep some questions blank unlike the multiple choice closed formats.

The importance of questionnaire format is in its indispensability. It is always important to decide the kind of format because lot of things like respondent’s answers, the time and space taken for answers all depend on the format of the questions. For example if the format has more of open ended questions then the respondents might not be keen on answering at all and even when he does answer he might just give short replies and not all that one needs to knows. Therefore, choosing the right format is important.